The bully

I was small as a young elementary school age boy, smaller than my small older sister who would sometimes defend me from bullies. But there was one bully she could not protect me from. He was a very large boy, wider than tall. Rugby was the most popular sport we all played in school, and he was the star player on our school team because of his size and aggressive demeanor. Almost everyone was terrified of him because he threatened and abused everyone of his classmates to get what he wanted or just to just for fun and his personal gratification. I never saw him with friends and he was always alone. At school at least, I never saw him out side of school, but I would avoid him as much as possible as did most kids. He was not well liked. I didn’t know why he was the way he was, and frankly, I didn’t care. He was a mean person. In hind sight, he was probably abused and neglected at home, which was why he acted the way he did but I did not care. I just lived in terror of him and tried to avoid him at all costs. As far as I knew, everyone else did too.

At the end of the school year we left school for the long Christmas holidays and school recess. When we returned to school in the new year it would be a new grade, and we would be older. And one of the surprises and pleasures was to see how we had shot up in height and the growth spurts were quite spectacular, especially in the girls. I, and many of the other boys were very intrigued by how the girls had filled out over the Christmas recess, but that is for another story to tell, not this one. It seems everyone grew bigger, and as we bumped into each other that first day back, we compared notes, and I was surprised to see I had matched the growth pattern of all the boys in my class and grade level. Except one boy. The dreaded bully.

when I first saw him, I was amazed. I did not shrink back from him in terror, in fact I was taller than him. He was not so huge and muscular, he was small and fat. Like a circus midget small. And I noticed he was not aggressive and threatening, in fact he shrunk away from everyone and didn’t talk much. Everyone ignored him, or when they looked in his direction laughed amongst themselves. He was not a threat to anyone anymore, and he knew it.

In a few days, we were selected for rugby teams that were being formed at school to compete against each other and against all the other schools in our district and in the province. And he was not picked. It turns out he was not a very talented rugby player, could not run fast, did not grasp any of the moves to be a valuable team player. All he did the previous years was grasp the ball and plow through the players to get to the goal line and score. But this year he was not huge or intimidating, and during try outs, the coaches were not impressed with his abilities to play the game and he was not selected by any team. He eventually just faded into the background of school life, and in fact a couple of occasions I saw him losing in fights with other boys who he used to bully mercilessly the previous year. One day he just stopped showing up to class. I think he transferred to another school. He was never seen again. If that is not instant karma, I don’t know what is.